


First Response

by coldfusion9797



Category: Chicago Fire, Chicago PD (TV), Friday Night Lights, Political Animals, Smash (TV), The Walking Dead (TV), Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:48:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3662742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldfusion9797/pseuds/coldfusion9797
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone deals with the apocalypse in their own way.<br/>A crossover fic set in The Walking Dead verse with characters from Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Political Animals and more...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chicago: Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm kinda new to AO3. All the other fics (except for my RPS's) are ones I'm pulling over from Fanfiction. This one is new though, it's an Archive exclusive! It's the first incomplete story I've begun posting here and I'll be adding more tags as it progresses.  
> Anyway, I've decided to throw a whole bunch of my favourite characters into the zombie apocalypse. The timelines won't quite match up, so I'm not setting it in a particular year and I'll let you know when the apocalypse hits in relation to each show. The first chapter is set towards the end of season two of Chicago Fire. Hope everyone enjoys this story, thanks for giving it a go :)

Kelly Severide looks up from his copy of _Muscle Car Review_ at the sound of Casey's voice. "Hey Mouch, turn that up," the blonde lieutenant says.  
The crew of firehouse 51 gather around the TV.  
_"I repeat Air Force One, the presidents plane, has crashed on approach to landing in Biarritz, France. The cause of the accident is unknown but early reports indicate a mechanical malfunction, eye witnesses say the plane lurched and pinwheeled into the ocean. President Garcetti was onboard along with white house staffers, secret service and Air Force One personnel. Thirty-four people in all..."_  
Everyone watches in stunned silence as the reporter informs them of the president's death. Garcetti was young and likeable and had the people's best interests at heart.  
Herrmann and Otis have tears in their eyes. Shay has them running down her face. Kelly goes to her and wraps an arm around his best friend, she leans against him.  
"He's got a little boy..." Dawson's voice is full of grief for the kid whose father won't be coming home.  
No one gets a chance to say anything else before the bell rings. _"Truck 81, Squad 3, Ambulance 61. Structure fire. West Division Street."_  
It takes them all a second longer than usual to react.  
"Let's go squad!" Severide calls to his men.  
"Gear up!" Lieutenant Casey commands to his firefighters.  
The four story building is well alight when they arrive on the scene. Kelly doesn't have to think, he's done this countless times before. He issues orders to his men and runs into the burning building, while everyone else runs out. It's what first responders are trained to do. To go against human instinct. To run into the danger, instead of away from it. Along with Mills, he sweeps the first floor. Inside a bedroom they find a badly burned victim. The man is unresponsive and Kelly picks him up as gently as he can manage amidst the smoke and flames, while the ceiling threatens to collapse on them.  
Outside Dawson has radioed for another ambo to cope with the volume of victims.  
Chout and his partner are unloading the gurney from their ambo as Kelly carries the victim out. He lays the man on the empty gurney and the paramedics begin working, but Kelly doesn't like their chances. Still, he had to try.  
Moments later he's proved right when Chout calls it.  
Kelly's already moved on and started back towards the inferno when he hears Chout scream. "He bit me!"  
Kelly looks back at the paramedics. Chout is cradling his forearm which is bleeding profusely and his partner is struggling to hold the thrashing victim down. Kelly immediately goes to his aid. He's never seen anything like it. The victim is snarling and snapping, trying his hardest to bite them. Kelly's looks into his eyes, suspecting drugs or shock are to blame, but what he sees there unnerves him more. The vic's eyes are a spooky white; they look inhuman. It's way beyond his expertise.  
"Shay! Get over here!" he calls out to the medic, as he fights to hold the man down, not wanting a repeat of Chout's injury. She comes over. Somewhere in the background Chout is squealing. "He ate it! He ate it!"  
"What the hell's wrong with him?" Kelly asks her, he has to raise his voice over the panicking paramedic and the snarls coming from the victim. "Look at his eyes!" Shay takes a look and appears just as baffled as the lieutenant is. Charred hands reach for her and Kelly has to use more strength than he expects to subdue the attack. He feels cooked meat slip down arm bones and still the patient struggles, indifferent to the unbelievable pain he must be in. Shay looks so horrified she's forgotten her training.  
"Shay! Strap him down!" It's all Kelly can think to do. She nods and seems to come back to herself as she carries out his instruction. When that's done she draws a shot of sedative with shaking hands, but it has no effect on the crazy patient.  
In the meantime Boden has declared the building unsafe and called everyone out.  
Casey comes up beside him then, his face is sooty as he sips from a bottle of water.  
"I dunno what that was," Kelly says nervously, wiping his sleeve across his forehead as the paramedics load the struggling patient into the ambo. Shay wraps Chout's gaping bite wound up too and he climbs in the back of the ambo, alongside the violent burn victim.  
Back at the house, Kelly sits at his desk, staring down at the incident report form in front of him. He's trying to decide how to reconcile what he's seen. What happened shouldn't have been possible. A victim injured to that degree should've been in agony and lethargic, if not comatose, definitely not doing his darndest to eat the paramedics treating him. He can't find the words for what happened without sounding crazy so he gives up and heads out into the common room.  
"You ever seen anything like that?" Herrmann asks the room in general. No one answers as they all struggle to process what they've seen. A seemingly dead man waking and taking a bite of an EMT is a rarity even in their line of work.  
The bell sounds again, it's turning out to be a hell of a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is set in the Walking Dead universe and involves a lot of characters from various other TV shows. If you're into some and not others just skip the chapters for the fandoms you're not familiar with and it should still flow for the threads you are interested in. Of course later on down the line they'll start to merge but I'll let you know when that happens. Thanks for reading :)


	2. Chicago: Part 2

This time dispatch sends them to Chicago Med with reports of rioting.  
There are people pouring from the doors when they arrive at the hospital. Doctors, nurses and patients flee the building in terror. Their faces aren't like any rioters Kelly's ever seen.  
The intelligence squad is already on scene. Kelly spots Lindsay and goes to the female cop for answers.  
"What've we got?"  
She looks at him with an uncertainty he's not used to seeing in the competent police officer's hazel eyes. "Some kinda crazy virus I think. The patients started eating the staff."  
"Wait, what? Dispatch said rioting. I thought we'd be putting out spot fires."  
"Not quite. You know that burn vic from Division? Took a bite out of a doctor. I had to shoot him. And that paramedic, Chout was it? He went crazy too."  
"He okay?"  
She shakes her head. "He's dead. Jay shot him four times in the chest and he just kept coming. A head shot finally stopped him. It's chaos in there."  
"Speaking of, shouldn't you be inside?"  
She frowns. "Were you listening? Four chest shots. We locked what doors we could. Those infected people can't be allowed to get out."  
Kelly's mind turns towards the patients still inside. People at their most vulnerable, and the cops just walked out and left them.  
"What about the rest?"  
"Collateral damage."  
Kelly can't accept that. "Squad 3! We're going in!" If there are people in there to be saved, they have to save them. Half the people they rescued this morning were in that hospital. What was the point of pulling them from a burning building to leave them in this hospital to die now? "Capp, grab the Halligans! And bring an axe!"  
She grabs his arm. "Kelly, it's too dangerous."  
"It's always dangerous." He shrugs her off and leads his men inside.  
He can't help but think Lindsay was right once he's in the building. It is chaos. People are running, screaming, crying. There's blood everywhere. Infected people crouch over dead bodies. And yeah, he's pretty sure they're eating them.  
"Chief," he radios through, "we need a secure perimeter set up. No one is to leave the scene." If this is a disease, it's vicious and is spreading rapidly.  
"Copy that Severide."  
"Capp! Tony! You're with me. The rest of you go that way. And be careful, don't touch the infected ones."  
Everyone does as they're told. It's not hard to tell who has the disease. They have those freaky eyes and their chins drip with blood.  
"What do we do lieutenant?" Tony's voice is understandably thick with fear. Before Kelly can answer him Tony is grabbed by an infected patient. It bites his throat, painting his front red as blood pours from the wound. He makes desperate, choking sounds.  
"Capp! Help me!" Kelly yells. They manage to wrestle the attacker off and Kelly struggles to hold him down while Capp helps Tony. Pale, unnatural eyes turn on him and suddenly he's the one being attacked. Teeth snap at him and hands claw against his coat. They wrestle against each other until Kelly finds himself pinned beneath the attacker, it's hungry mouth snapping inches from his face. He's fighting for his life now. He holds the snarling attacker at bay with one hand as the other desperately searches for the Halligan bar he dropped nearby. His fingers find it and wrap around the handle. He manages to raise the bar and swing it into the patient's head, somewhere in his desperation recalling what Lindsay said about Halstead's useless chest shots. The body on top of him goes limp. He rolls it off and sits up, thankfully uninjured.  
Capp looks aghast. That could be because Kelly's possibly just committed murder, or because his own bloodstained hands are pressed ineffectively into Tony's bubbling throat. Kelly's on his radio again.  
"Man down! We need medics in here now!" He shouldn't need to call paramedics into a hospital, but he does. The doctors are dead or gone.  
"Forget the infected ones. We save the others." Capp stares at him with wide blue eyes, but nods.  
It's Shay and Dawson that come to their aid. The girls go to work on Tony but it's a battle they lose. There's no way to stem the blood flow with half his throat missing and he bleeds out.  
There's no time to process his death, let alone grieve when more of the infected appear. As much as Kelly hates to do it, they leave his body behind on the floor. With the hospital in this state of disarray there's nothing else to do. Kelly has a feeling a lot of people won't be getting the respect they deserve today. As the infected patients shuffle around the corner Kelly pulls Shay up, and Capp grabs Dawson, and they head further into the building.  
"Fire department, call out!" Kelly says with renewed urgency, hoping anyone who's hiding might hear him. It's part rescue mission, part saving their own asses now. They check room after room, throwing doors open, to find them empty or full of corpses, both animated and just plain dead.  
"Severide. Report." Chief's voice comes over the radio.  
"I'm with Capp, Shay and Dawson. We're checking rooms. Tony didn't make it."  
"Get out of there now," Chief says.  
"Chief, we're still checking for survivors."  
"That's an order Lieutenant. The military are on their way."  
He shares a shocked look with the other three.  
"Military, Chief?"  
"Yes. Evacuate the building now."  
"Copy that." He turns to the medics and other firefighter. "You heard him. Let's go."  
They head back the way they came, knowing it's the quickest way to the exit and hoping the infected people have moved on. Kelly and Capp go first, tools at the ready. When they make it back to where Tony was killed, he is waiting for them.  
"Is that..." Shay gapes.  
"You're sure he was dead?" Kelly seeks to confirm.  
"Without a doubt," Dawson says.  
"And I thought we trained for everything on squad," Capp chimes in.  
Tony stretches dead hands towards them and Kelly swings his Halligan into the dead man's skull, his only thought to protect his living friends from sharing Tony's fate. Beyond him the corridor is swarming with walking corpses. The exit is blocked.  
"How the hell did this happen?" Dawson asks over the hungry snarls.  
There's no time for questions now with the dead ones closing in. "I dunno," Kelly says, "but I damn well don't wanna end up one of them. This way." They turn down an empty and unexplored corridor. Kelly leads the others into an uninfected room and closes the door behind them. The infected people hit the door hard and they listen to them growl and try to claw their way in.  
"Chief, this is Severide. We're secure for now but we're trapped."  
"Copy that Severide. What's your location?"  
Dawson jumps on the radio and explains, she knows the hospital better than he does.  
"Lieutenant Severide?" Kelly turns to see a woman on the far bed with long, blonde hair and is surprised when he recognises her, despite the fact thar she's wearing a hospital gown and not her uniform.  
"Captain Cunningham?"  
"What's happening out there? I was going to go see but I'm not much use to anyone like this." She indicates to her bandaged knee. He gives her an incredulous look, not sure how anyone could've missed the outbreak, and unsure how to explain the impossible things he's seen. It's going to be hard to get her out of here like that. She reads enough from his face to know it's not good. "Shitty week to have it reconstructed I guess," she says, finishing his thought.  
"Guess so," he agrees. His attention is drawn back to the door when the infected almost break through. He and Capp throw their shoulders against it to hold it closed. He manages to get a hand to his radio.  
"Severide here. Any chance of a hand, Chief?"  
"They're not letting anyone back in," Chief's voice informs them. "You're gonna have to figure this out on your own. And Severide, better make it quick."  
"Copy that." A particularly hard shove has him and Capp bracing heavily against the door. "Anyone got any ideas?" Kelly appeals to the rooms in general. Shay and Dawson help them barricade the door closed with a bed. They are still trapped but at least it buys him a moment to think.  
Chief's voice issues from the radio again, with more urgency this time. "Kelly, you better get out of there now. The military is about to raze this place to the ground."  
"Copy that. On our way." Kelly hastily pulls apart an IV rack and gives pieces of the pole to Shay and Dawson in case they need to defend themselves. He should have grabbed Tony's Halligan but the part where his dead friend was sizing him up for dinner kinda distracted him.  
"Looks like we're gonna have to hack our way outta this one. You ready Capp?" Capp nods, tightening his grip on his axe.  
"Can you walk on that?" Kelly asks the Captain.  
"Looks like I don't have much choice," she says, gritting her teeth and resigning herself to the inevitable pain.  
"Alright, c'mon." He helps Captain Cunningham up. She wraps an arm around his neck, fighting to support her own weight on her bad knee. She's definitely going to slow them down but he won't leave her here to die.  
He decides to trade weapons with Shay, she'll get a lot more done than he can with having to carry Cunningham.  
"Okay, ready?" Wide eyes and determined nods answer him, and then Capp shoves the bed aside. The door opens, and the infected people tumble through, more than he expected. Capp swings his axe, Shay uses the Halligan, Dawson does her best with the metal tubing. More walking corpses are drawn to the excited growls of the ones already in the room. They are trapped and the situation only looks like getting worse, and then Capp snaps. He uses his axe like a battering ram to push his way through the bodies, they claw and bite at him, some of them drawing blood. Somehow he makes it to the other side and the corpses in the room follow him, or rather the scent of fresh blood Kelly thinks. Capp starts to lead them down the corridor.  
"Go now! Get out! Run!" he yells back at them. By the time Kelly makes out the door to Shay and Dawson with Cunningham, Capp's being torn apart. With no way to save him now, they honour him by not wasting his sacrifice and head towards the exit as quickly as they can.  
As they run for their lives towards the main entrance, more hungry dead people come at them from rooms and corridors. Shay seems to be getting the hang of taking them out, but more keep coming. They're not going to make it if they don't hurry up. He stops long enough to throw Cunningham over his shoulder, at least this way he can run rather than hobble.  
Finally the door is in sight but between them and freedom are more corpses. Suddenly Casey and Antonio burst through the door. Antonio lifts his gun and empties it into the dead people blocking their way.  
"Hurry up!" Casey yells. They are going as fast as they can and at last they make it outside to safety.  
Once they are free of the hellish hospital Dawson throws herself into her brothers arms. Kelly hands Cunningham over to Casey, and Shay does the same to him. She sobs with relief and fear. He holds her tight. If he was a girl he might do the same. Two of his men died in there and one of them wanted to eat him alive, but they've made it out. For now they are safe.  
Behind them army personnel move to chain the doors shut and then the order to evacuate the area is given. They are told they don't want to be in the vicinity when the flamethrowers light up.  
After the Napalm is dispensed, they stay onsite to control the fire until backup crews arrive and the main blaze has died down. He's not sure when, or how, it's going to hit him that they just watched a hospital burned intentionally to the ground.


	3. Texas: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changing shows for this chapter. This one's Friday Night Lights. I'm picking it up midway through season 4. If there are any characters from any of the fandoms that you really wanna see in the story, let me know :)

Tim Riggins feels on edge. This hunting trip is supposed to be a way to get away from everything and chill for a few days but having a greenhorn tag along makes it pretty hard to relax. He figures he can put up with it though because Matt needs this as much as he does. Finishing high school hadn't been the adventure they'd been promised. The beginning of the rest of their lives and all that crap. Their lives were shit before and their lives are still shit now. The only difference is they used to have football and now they don't.  
A gunshot rips through the Texan brush. Tim spins round.  
"What the hell?!" he shouts at the quarterback.  
"I saw somethin' move."  
"Somethin'? You fired without knowing?"  
"What? We're hunting, ain't we?" Matt fires back.  
"Shit," Tim huffs, shoving his hair back before ripping the gun away from the reckless artist. "Get in there and see what it was."  
Matt heads into the trees and Tim follows with the guns, it's safer that way. He decides after a few steps to stop and empty the rifle so he can give it back to Matt unloaded and save himself the trouble of carrying both weapons.  
When he catches up Matt is standing stock still staring down at the ground. Something about his stance unnerves Tim. He draws closer and looks down at the carcass at Matt's feet. It's no damn white-tail, that's for sure.  
"Is he dead?" Matt asks.  
"You shot his jaw clean off," Tim answers. So yeah, he's pretty damn sure that means the guy is a goner.  
"What are we gonna do?"  
"I don't know!" Tim snaps, "give me a second to think".  
"Damn," Matt swears, then he doubles over and hurls.  
"Keep it together man," Tim tells him. They've gotta stay calm and be smart about this. It was an accident, just a mistake. Matt doesn't deserve to go to prison for this. They'll have to hide the body.  
Matt's wiping his mouth and scrubbing at his nose.  
"I didn't think it'd smell so bad already."  
"No, you're right. It shouldn't. He smells like he's been dead for days." This feels all wrong. Not that he's seen too many dead people, but he's seen plenty of dead animals and it ain't like this. They look like they did when they were alive, except they're not. If this guy looked like this when he was alive, grey skin drawn tight over his bones, then Tim doesn't know what the hell was wrong with him. He's reminded of a mangy dog. Something so sick it'd be better off dead. "Grab his feet," Tim instructs, as he grabs the guys arms. "We'll drag him further into the scrub and bury him." Matt stares at him with wide eyes. "What are you waiting for?" Tim gives the body a shake, indicating for Matt to help. "Do you want to go to prison?" Matt grabs his end and when they start to lift it a gurgle comes from the body. Tim can ignore it considering the mangled state of the guys face, there's bound to be things rattling around where they shouldn't. But when his eyes open, it's kind of impossible to explain away.   
"Holy shit!" He drops the body and scrambles back, Matt stumbles with the added weight and drops the body too.   
"What?" Matt asks urgently.  
"He opened his eyes." And something about that rocks Tim to his core. Not that the guy is alive, but the look in them. It wasn't human.  
"How?" Matt pleads, "you said he was dead!"  
"He should be!"  
They look down in unified horror when the guy starts to squirm around on the ground between them. His movements are sluggish and pitiful. His withered hands claw at the ground.   
"Now what?" Matt desperately appeals to him.  
"How the hell should I know?!" Tim barks back nervously.  
"Well we've gotta help him," Matt insists, crouching down in the dirt. Tim doesn't think that's an option. There's something so wrong about all this, the guys not even bleeding properly. He should be painted red with blood but instead a thick blackish liquid seeps from the injury. If this was an animal, he'd put it down quick smart. It'd be the kindest thing to do. The guy continues to claw and gurgle and Tim just wants him to stop.   
He pumps a bullet into the chamber.  
"What are you doing?" Matt gasps. Tim aims a head shot and pulls the trigger. The horrible writhing and gurgling stops. Silence rings out around them. Tim stares down at the eyes waiting for that tell tale change but there's no light _to_ go out.  
"You can't do that!"  
"Just did. Now shut up and help me. It's both our arses on the line now."  
They bury the guy in a shallow grave and camp the night like they planned. Matt's haunted face is a dead give away about what they've done, and Tim fears his own might be the same. A night to adjust and get their shit together will benefit them both. But despite all that Tim can't shake the feeling that somehow, what they've done, was actually the right thing to do.


	4. Chicago: Part 3

Leslie Shay focuses on the task at hand. After today, it's better that way.  
"All done Severide." She offers him a smile which he tries to return despite the day they've had. He tries because they are best friends, and she knows he'd do anything for her.  
"Thanks Shay."  
They are back at the firehouse and she sends Kelly on his way after a check up. He's got a debriefing with Chief to get to. Shay doesn't know what to think about the days unexplainable events so she's trying to focus on the here and now.  
With Chicago Med gone all the patients who made it out have been billeted out to other hospitals. Everywhere is full so they are taking care of their own. Not that Kelly needed a hospital but it might've been nice to have a doctors opinion on the transmission and virulence of the pathogen.   
She changes her gloves and moves on to Captain Cunningham. The blonde firefighter watches Kelly appreciatively as he leaves.  
"He's an incredible man," Cunningham says.  
"He is," Shay bites back. There's so much more to Kelly than his good looks.  
Cunningham doesn't fail to notice her tone.  
"I mean it," she offers, "he saved me today. I owe him my life."  
Now Shay feels shitty for jumping to conclusions. "Sorry, it's been a stressful day."  
"It's fine. And yeah, I noticed that too," Cunningham admits with a smile. "But he's got brains and courage to match those stunning looks."   
"He sure does," Shay appreciates, she doesn't know a braver person than Kelly. And yeah, she's gay, but anyone with eyes can see that he's beautiful on the outside too.   
"What do you think happened in that hospital today? You ever seen or heard of anything like that?" Cunningham directs her question at both paramedics.  
"No," Dawson says decisively, which scares Shay because Dawson's medical knowledge it pretty extensive. If anyone at 51 has any clue about what happened it'd be the Dominican PIC, she all but went to medical school.  
"Do you think," Shay ventures, not sure if she wants to ask the question out loud, "that we can catch it?"  
"I doubt it," Dawson says. "It's been hours since we were exposed, and Tony's progression was less than ten minutes. Plus he was bitten, it's probably blood borne. If your skin is intact you should be okay."   
Cunningham glances down at her post-surgery knee.  
"Dressings totally count as skin, honey," Shay assures her with a gentle pat to her bandaged knee. Cunningham gives her a grateful look.  
"Where do you think it came from?" Cunningham asks. "Could it be some foreign disease?"   
"Maybe, or it could've come from an animal," Dawson speculates. "Or it might be something new altogether. Pathogens evolve faster than anything else."  
None of it's reassuring. Shay's memory is filled with the image of Kelly taking Tony down. Tony who was dead. Dead and walking. What kind of a disease could do that? Nothing natural.  
"Maybe it's something engineered?" she suggests, thinking out loud.  
"You mean terrorists?" asks Cunningham.  
"I don't know," Shay shrugs, scared of the thought now she's said it. She just wants to forget about it all for now. "Whatever it is, I don't think we're the ones that are gonna figure it out. Let's just check this knee, okay?"   
xxx  
Matthew Casey stands beside his friend and fellow lieutenant in the chief's office.  
"What happened in there Severide?" Bowden asks. Sev hesitates a second before he sucks it up and answers. Sev is the bravest man he knows, that this gives him pause tells Casey just how bad it was.  
"Tony died and came back to life." The dead rising. It sounds like that burn victim from this morning.  
"You're sure he was dead?" Bowden presses. He's a man used to dealing with the reality of situations, and as the day progresses everything is feeling more and more unreal.  
Sev pauses, a frown knitting his brow. It's obvious he finds the recollection painful. Casey wants to save him from it. They can do this once Sev's had time to process it.  
"Chief, I-" Casey tries to intercede on behalf of his friend.  
"No, it's okay," Sev says, holding a hand up for him to be quiet. "The paramedics checked and they said there was no doubt. Then I saw him walking around when we came back. He attacked us."  
"I'm sorry Kelly, I know this is difficult," Bowden attempts. Sympathy is the wrong way to go. Sev snaps.  
"Difficult?! You weren't in there! You didn't see people being eaten alive by other people! What the hell happened on your end? How could the military do that? There might've been more survivors."  
"As far as I can tell, Washington is in disarray with the presidents death. They decided swift and decisive action was necessary. I'm sorry Kelly, this disease isn't something anyone wants to see get away."  
Just as quickly as it flared, Sev's anger drains away. He scrubs a hand over his face.  
"I don't know, maybe you're right. It spread so fast, Tony can't have been infected for more than ten minutes when we came back and found him."  
Sev says it with a hollowness in his voice Casey's never head before. He reaches out and pats his friend on the shoulder to let him know he's heard it, and that's he's here. Sev turns steely, blue eyes on him and gives him a grateful look. Casey gives him a small nod and sees him bolster a little. When he speaks again there's more determination in his voice.  
"I think it's what happened with that burn vic," Sev theorises. "I think he was dead on the gurney and then came back to life and tried to eat the medic."  
"Lindsay said Chout attacked a doctor, right?" Casey points out.   
"Yeah," Sev nods. "You think he was infected with whatever this is, and if it's a disease it's passed on by a bite?"  
"I think so," Casey replies solemnly.  
"So what do we do?" Chief poses the question. Severide and Casey share an uneasy look. They never trained for anything like this at the academy.  
A second later the door swings open and Cruz interrupts.  
"You gotta come see this."  
Picking up on the urgency in his voice, they follow him to the common room.  
Between the president's tragic and untimely death (authorities in France have found his body and confirmed it), and the outbreak and burning of the hospital, there is no room on the TV for anything but news reports.  
They all watch in horror as reports of similar incidents to the one at Chicago Med pour in from all over the country. Austin, Atlanta, Salem, New York.  
Suddenly it feels like the end of the world.  
Every cell phone in the house comes out then. Gabi calls Antonio. Otis calls Katie on the off chance she'll pick up. Cruz dials his brother's number. Shay tries her family down south. Casey means to try his sister, but a call from Heather comes through first. As he answers it he sees Sev slip quietly outside.


	5. Chicago: Part 4

It's too much. He can't mourn for the whole world when Tony and Capp are dead, not when he led them into that death trap.  
Kelly heads outside and calls his dad. He'd like to hear the old mans brusque assurances as much as he wants to check he's okay but Benny doesn't answer.  
"Hey."  
He looks up to see Matt approaching. "Hey."  
"Here," he holds out a cigar.  
Kelly takes it. "Thanks man."  
"I just had a call from Heather," Casey tells him, "she saw the news, she's pretty scared."  
"Anything like this happening in Florida?"  
"Yeah. I think it's everywhere."   
There's nothing to say to that because Kelly thinks it might be true. And what the hell are they supposed to do if it is?  
They smoke in companionable silence for a while. It's good just to know Matt's here after the losses he's suffered.  
Eventually it's Kelly that breaks the silence. "That could've just as easily been me as Chout." He's thinking of the dead burn victim he carried out.   
Casey rests a hand on his shoulder and looks him in the eye. "But it wasn't."  
"But it was Tony and Capp."  
"I'm so sorry Sev. They were good men."  
Kelly nods. Capp was one of the best, he'd sacrificed himself for them.   
"I thought we were gonna lose you too man. And Gabi and Shay. Antonio and I had to fight pretty hard to stop those army guys locking the doors with you still in there. But you made it out and you brought Cunningham with you. She'd be dead if you hadn't gone in there."  
Kelly wonders if he made the right call. Were Tony and Capp's lives a fair exchange for Cunningham's?  
"No one would've died if I hadn't brought that vic out and sent him to the hospital."  
"Hey c'mon, you can't think like that. You were just doing your job. All this was going to happen anyway, you saw the news. It's all over the country." Maybe Casey was right.  
"None of this makes sense. How can dead people be walking around wanting to eat us?"  
"I have no idea," Matt admits.  
Questioning their actions is an unsettling feeling for both of them. They are leaders and not used to being so unsure. They are used to making tough calls in the heat of the moment. It's who they are. It's what they do.   
They don't have time to wallow in their uncertainties though as footsteps draw their attention.   
"Hello? Is someone there?" Casey calls into the fading light. The footsteps halt and then start in their direction and as the figure materialises out of the darkness they realise what, not who, it is.   
"Inside, quick!" Kelly hisses. He's not taking this thing on without his Halligan.  
Inside, Kelly pulls the tool from the belly of the truck, and starts back outside with determined strides to deal with this problem. He will see no more of his friends die today.   
"What are you doing?" Matt says. Kelly continues walking towards the door.  
"Hey wait!" Matt grabs an axe and follows him. Kelly is grateful his friend doesn't argue.   
Outside, in the face of what they are about to do, Matt hesitates. "They're beyond help, right?"  
"They're dead. Doesn't get much more beyond help than that."  
"Right," Matt nods.  
The walking corpse reaches for them, snarling and snapping with the single goal of filling it's belly with their flesh. It lunges for Kelly, he swings the Halligan in defence, striking it in the chest. The tool catches and Matt springs into action sinking the axe head into it's chest as well. Kelly reefs on the Halligan handle, but it's stuck, caught between two ribs. The blows don't effect the attacker beyond momentarily slowing it down. It obviously feels no pain. Blood loss doesn't effect it. It's still making that horrible growling noise.  
Kelly wrenches his weapon free just as Matt does. They both go for the head shot, taking the top of it's skull clean off. Matt jumps back in repulsion, but Kelly swings again at the falling body. He continues to hit it when it's on the ground, snatching the axe out of Matt's hand when the Halligan doesn't do enough damage, and continues to hack at the corpse.  
The thing stopped moving long ago but Kelly swings the axe again and again. It was already dead, how can he be sure he's killed it? He hits it again. And then again...  
"Sev. Kelly. Stop!" Casey pulls him away.  
"We left Capp behind," Kelly says, gulping for air because suddenly there doesn't seem to be enough to go around. He can see Capp's agonised face as he was overwhelmed, the sound of his screams plays over and over again inside his head. And they'd turned and run. What else could they have done? Did it matter that it'd been hopeless? They should've at least tried, shouldn't they? Even though that meant they'd have died there with him. "There was nothing we could do. There were so many of them and chief was on the radio and I had Shay and Dawson and Cunningham to think about..." Kelly gasps out.  
"You did the right thing," Matt tells him.  
"All the training went out the window. Dead people walking around, it's just not supposed to happen." He stares down at the pulp on the driveway. Since when did something like this resemble okay? He forces himself to calm down. Something tells him that things are gonna get a whole lot worse before they get better and people are going to rely on him to keep them alive.  
He takes a steady breath and gets himself under control.  
"What do we do with it now?" he wonders.  
Matt pulls out his phone.  
"I'll call Antonio."   
xxx  
Antonio Dawson finds Severide and Casey standing out the front of 51. Nearby is what used to be a person. They've done a real number on the body, there's nothing bigger than a football left.  
"You boys were pretty thorough. What happened?"  
"We neutralised the threat," Severide says, gore splattered all over his face.  
"Yeah I can see that."  
"What's the protocol for dealing with this?" Matt asks.  
"Whatever you did seemed to work. We've been driving around all night shooting the ones we come across."  
"So we're running with the theory they're dead then?"  
"Yeah. Things got pretty weird at Chicago Med after you boys left. The bodies were all lined up outside. Now, these people were honest to God dead for five or six hours and then they started climbing out of their body bags," Antonio tells them, still feeling kind of shell shocked. He's seen a lot of shit during his years as a cop but never anything like that. "It turned into a Goddamned shooting gallery but some of them must've gotten away."  
"What's going to happen now?"  
"Honestly? I don't know. There's no way to know if we got them all."  
"So what do we do with this one?" Matt asks.  
"We left them where we shot them. Resources are pretty stretched, there was no time to clean up. They've put a recall on the military. Anyone less than five years out is back in. Jay had to go."  
"It's that serious?" Matt says.  
"Yeah. This whole... whatever it is, is escalating all over the country."  
"It's a contagion," Kelly points out, still thinking about disposing of the body. "You think it'll be okay if we burn it?"  
"Go ahead. Forensics is never gonna come looking for this. They've already got way more than they can handle."  
"Hey Antonio, how'd those ones outside die?"  
"Bites, I think. Must've bled out."  
"That doesn't explain Chout. Call Lindsay." Antonio pulls out his phone and dials.   
"People with minor bites came out of that hospital, right?" Kelly says to Casey.  
"Yeah."   
Antonio's got Lindsay on the line.  
"Give me that phone. Erin it's Kelly. What were Chout's eyes like before you guys put him down?...Weird like pale weird?....Uh-huh. You guys need to get to the other hospitals as quick as you can and isolate the Chicago Med survivors." He hands the phone back to Antonio so the cops can co-ordinate details.  
"We need to get moving too," he tells Matt. "We sent infected patients to hospitals all over Chicago."  
"Damn. The shit's about to hit the fan big time."  
The bells sounds. " _Truck 81, Squad 3, Ambulance 61..._ " They're being sent to another hospital.  
Kelly and Casey share a worried look. "Sounds like it already has."  
"I'll see you guys there," Antonio calls to them as he takes off towards his car.


	6. New York: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Switching shows again. This chapter is a combination of Veronica Mars and Smash. It picks Veronica's story up just before the events of the movie and for Smash we are midway through season two. Enjoy!

Manhattan is chaos. All at once two million people decide they need to run. The streets are bad enough at the best of times but with everybody trying to flee, the traffic comes to a complete standstill.  
It's amidst this sea of idling Fords and Hondas and yellow cabs that Veronica Mars finds herself. Along with Piz, and a thousand other people, she's stranded on a Broadway block and keen to get out of town now. She climbs out of the stationary vehicle and to her dismay sees that this jam isn't going anywhere fast. People are beginning to panic and it's not just that the traffic has stopped up ahead, it's that cars are piled together, crumpled and stuck, because their drivers have disregarded the road rules in their haste to escape.   
"Now what?" Piz casually asks, ever the optimist and she thinks she's going to need that. Any situation that involves the dead walking around with a hunger for the living can't end well.  
Veronica doesn't answer because her attention is drawn by an angry looking guy who is striding determinedly towards the source of the traffic blockage.  
"What the hell is going on up there?" he demands of no one in particular.  
"Jimmy, wait!" a tall brunette calls after him as she tries to keep up while dodging between cars and people. 'Jimmy' shoves past Piz but the woman stumbles and falls into him. Piz manages to catch her and keep them both from crashing to the ground.  
"Sorry," she apologises with a friendly smile.  
"It's no prob..." he trails off because he's recognised her. "Hey, you're Karen Cartwright. I saw Hit List at Fringe. It was awesome!"  
"Oh thanks," she says, as she straightens her clothes and fixes her hair.  
"You really liked it?" another guy chimes in as he reaches them. He looks like he's about twelve but Veronica assumes he isn't when Karen introduces him.  
"This is Kyle, one of the writers," the actress says.  
"Yeah," Piz tells them enthusiastically. "It was the best show of the festival. 'Broadway, Here I Come' is a fantastic song."  
"Oh, it's my favourite too," Karen gushes.  
"Jimmy might've heard that if he wasn't being an ass!" Kyle calls loudly, hoping to catch his cowriters attention and get him to stop. Unexpectedly, it works.  
Jimmy stops and looks back to see that his friends have stopped for a chat. With a huff he doubles back.  
"I did the book. Jimmy writes the songs," Kyle explains.  
"'Heart-shaped Wreckage' was brilliant too," Piz tells the songwriter when he reaches them.  
"Thanks," Jimmy grumbles.  
"I'm Piz, by the way." Handshakes are exchanged all round, "and this is Veronica."  
"Hi," she waves over the roof of the car, flashing an impatient smile at Piz's new buddies.   
"Do you guys think the show will make Broadway?" Piz asks.  
Veronica and the brooding songwriter share a look, both sceptical about the chances considering the current state of affairs. Broadway musicals probably aren't going to be the top of anyone's priority list now that the dead have decided to rise up and eat the living. Though that little detail doesn't seem to phase Piz or Karen or Kyle at the present moment.   
"As fascinating as all this is," a British drawl interrupts, "I think we should be more worried about the hungry corpses chasing us right now, don't you?"   
Karen, Kyle and Piz all look suitably abashed.   
The latest arrival finishes by introducing himself as Broadway director Derek Wills. He seems to think that's important.   
"Right," Veronica says ignoring his ego completely and taking the lead because someone's got to. "Now back to business. How are we gonna get out of here?"  
Five blank faces look back at her.  
"We're trying to get Iowa," Jimmy tells her.   
"My parents are there," Karen adds.  
"First we need to get off Manhattan," Veronica points out.  
Being stranded on an island in the middle of a pending apocalypse isn't ideal. It means they're gonna have to use a bridge or a tunnel, and everyone else is going to have the same idea. There's no good option. They need to head west which makes the George Washington Bridge the best option because they'd have a clear run on the other side but it's a long way north and the sooner they get off Manhattan the better. The Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges leave them in the same predicament of being stranded on an island because they lead in the wrong direction. Veronica doesn't like the thought of heading into a tunnel. Apart from the possibility of becoming trapped, the Holland and the Lincoln will just leave them in Jersey City with another river to cross. It's a shitty situation to say the least.  
A scream cuts through her thoughts and alerts them all to the presence of a walker. Suddenly the crowd is scattering and it's chaos of a different sort. People abandon their vehicles and flee on foot, panicking as a horde of walkers spills from a nearby side street. There's no option but to go with the flow. Veronica grabs her backpack and yells at Piz to do the same. They head off with four showbiz personalities in tow.  
It looks like they're all in this together now, so Veronica might as well make the most of her new resources.  
"Anyone know how to skipper a boat?"


End file.
